


where flowers bloom

by lumoshyperion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Albus works in a plant nursery, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Astoria is a regular customer and brings Scorpius along one day, Gardens & Gardening, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumoshyperion/pseuds/lumoshyperion
Summary: He wasn’t sure what it was about the boy that caught his eye. He could only see the back of his head, but he seemed somewhat out of place in the store - with his neat clothes and the way he brushed the succulent’s leaves like they were made of glass.Eventually, he stopped and looked directly at him. He was the most beautiful boy Albus had ever seen. He gave an awkward little wave and said, “Hi.”Albus comically glanced over his shoulder, saw no one there, and then glanced back at him. “Hello. Can I umm - can I help you with plant?” He chuckled as Albus grimaced at his wording. “I mean, can I help you with anything?”
Relationships: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 54





	where flowers bloom

Albus Potter had nursed a love of plants from a very young age. Somewhere between burying his hands in the soil at his grandparent’s house and helping Uncle Neville in his expansive herb garden, he’d fallen in love with all things green and growing. So it came as no surprise to anyone when he accepted a job at his uncle’s nursery and green grocer. What seemed to bother his family, however, was the fact that he never moved on - even after he graduated secondary school. While everyone else left the village for university or their gap year, Albus stayed behind, happily tending to his plants and working on his pottery.

 _You like plants more than you like people_ , his cousin Rose would say. And she was half right. He could understand plants. He could tell the difference between two identical ferns, with his eyes closed, based on touch and smell alone. But it wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ people - he just found them difficult to read. And they always seemed to misinterpret his shyness as dislike or annoyance, so he thought it was best to just leave them alone.

Although there was one customer that he always looked forward to seeing. She lived in the manor half an hour down the road from the store and would often come by to ask questions about the plants in her large greenhouse. She wasn’t impatient like a lot of the other customers, and she always listened to what Albus had to say, even when he went on one of his rants about the difference between tropical and subtropical plants.

“Albus,” she sighed, turning heads as she waltzed into the nursery one Sunday afternoon with her luxurious blue coat trailing behind her. “I need your help.”

“Of course,” Albus replied, dropping his bag of potting mix and quickly brushing the soil from his hands as she approached. “Is it the lavender? Because you won’t see much growth for a while - they need more time to get used to the move.”

“Oh, no, they’re fine. I’ve started propagating the devil’s ivy from my son’s dorm room,” she paused, holding out her phone and swiping through the gallery. “I’m not sure if I did it correctly? Are they supposed to look like that?”

Albus glanced at the images and smiled. From the looks of them, she’d followed all of his directions and they were thriving. “Astoria, they look perfect. You can transfer them to some pots whenever you’re ready.”

“You’re sure?” Albus nodded. “Well, that’s a relief.”

He shrugged, but flashed her an understanding smile. Her son had over watered the original plant, and Astoria had brought it in months ago, hoping to save it. If anything, he found her concern horribly endearing. “Sorry you wasted a trip.”

“Oh, it’s never a wasted trip, Albus,” Astoria replied, glancing around the store. “Anything new today?”

“There’s some candles and hand soaps that Britt made. And Lachlan is selling jars of honey again. We won’t have any new plants until next month, though.”

He directed her to Lachlan’s stall near the front of the shop and returned to his work. But it wasn’t long before a customer caught his eye and he glanced up, watching as a boy with light hair in neat black trousers and a white jumper poked a succulent on the table of indoor plants.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the boy that caught his eye. He could only see the back of his head, but he seemed somewhat out of place in the store - with his neat clothes and the way he brushed the succulent’s leaves like they were made of glass.

Eventually, he stopped and looked directly at him. He was the most beautiful boy Albus had ever seen. He gave an awkward little wave and said, “Hi.”

Albus comically glanced over his shoulder, saw no one there, and then glanced back at him. “Hello. Can I umm - can I help you with plant?” He chuckled as Albus grimaced at his wording. “I mean, can I help you with anything?”

“No, no, I’m alright! I’m uhh - I’m actually rather a novice when it comes to greenery,” he said, fiddling with the hem of his jumper, before waving a dismissive hand. “I know, I know, you caught me. It’s embarrassing, really.”

“It’s fine,” Albus replied, a little too quickly. “I mean, we wouldn’t do a lot of business if everyone was a skilled gardener.”

“No, no - it’s embarrassing because my _mother_ has such a green thumb. Even her last name has ‘Green’ in it,” he explained. “Maybe it’s skipped a generation. Maybe my kids will come out of the womb with a watering can and go, ‘Ahh! Photosynthesis!’”

Albus let out a laugh so loud that he clapped a hand over his mouth. He took a moment to recover, giggling into his fingers before withdrawing his hand and shaking his head. The customer didn’t seem to mind, and was beaming back at him, his cheeks flushed with delight. “I think I can top that,” he said, after a while. “My last name is ‘Potter’.”

The boy’s face did a weird thing as he blindly reached for the table and leaned over it. “Oh, really?” He begun. “Does that come with a first na-”

The boy stopped mid sentence as his hand collided with the succulent he was prodding earlier. He tried to right himself, but accidentally knocked the pot off the table and they both watched as it fell to the ground and shattered.

“ _I am so sorry,_ ” he gasped, leaning down to try and scoop the soil back into the shattered pot. “I didn’t - oh, god, oh - I’ve made such a mess.”

“It’s alright,” Albus reassured him, bending down and pushing his hands aside so that he wouldn’t cut himself. “You’re not the first - we always have kids from the school come through with their backpacks and knock things over. At least you apologised.”

“Will it be okay?” Albus glanced up, seeing the devastated look he was giving the succulent. “I haven’t killed it, have I?”

“It’s fine.” He picked it up and brushed the soil from its leaves. “Plants don’t die that easily, they’re stronger than that. And I’m more worried about your clothes.”

The boy glanced down at his ruined jumper. “Oh,” he said, touching the creases of his forehead with a soil covered hand. “Right.”

“I have a workshop around the back of the store, if you wanted to get cleaned up,” Albus suggested, as he tried not to laugh again. “And we can find a new pot for this while we’re there.”

He’d never taken a customer into the workshop before. It was an old greenhouse that was a storage space for the nursery, before they expanded into the warehouse next door and no longer had a use for it. Uncle Neville suggested they clean it out for Albus to use for his growing interest in pottery and sculpture.

It was a mess, he realised, as he led the boy inside. There were stray tools lying on the floor and every surface was covered with pieces in progress and plants that he was re-potting for the store. “Sorry -” Albus started, just as the boy cut in with, “Did you make this?”

Albus turned and looked at the sculpture he was staring at. It was one of the clay foxes he was trying to sculpt from memory. There was a book or a film - something he read or watched as a child - that had a fox in it. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind. But the details were eluding him. “Yeah. It’s just - it’s something I’m messing around with.”

“It’s beautiful.” He paused, looking around with such genuine awe at the rest of the workshop that it made Albus blush. “All of this. It’s amazing.”

“I’m not trained, or anything,” he clarified, setting the succulent down on the workbench and looking around for a decent sized pot. “It’s just a hobby.”

“Isn’t there a makers market in the grocery? Why don’t you sell some of these?”

Albus scoffed. “I’m not good enough for that. Lachlan has his own franchise and Britt has been making candles with their mum since they were a kid. The rest of the stock we sell is from local farms that have been around since before the village was even established yet.”

“What’s your name?” The boy suddenly asked.

He blinked up at him, confused. “Albus.”

“Albus, I would buy this,” he exclaimed, gesturing to the fox. “I would buy everything in here. It’s gorgeous. You’re very talented.”

Albus looked away. He wasn’t sure why the compliment caught him so off guard, but he didn’t want a stranger to see how much it affected him. Even if that stranger happened to be a very cute boy with soil smeared across his forehead and a warm smile on his face.

“You said there was somewhere I could wash up?”

He cleared his throat and gestured towards the back of the work room. “Yeah, it’s just through there. There should be some fresh towels as well.”

Albus listened to the boy shuffling across the workshop, before he stopped just outside the washroom, and said, “Scorpius. My name is Scorpius.”

He looked up, but Scorpius had already disappeared into the washroom. And, by the sound of his groan of embarrassment, he had finally noticed the dirt on his face. Albus smiled to himself and started pouring soil into one of his handmade pots, which was shaped like a fox.

* * *

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised when Astoria came up to the counter and introduced Scorpius as her son. It just seemed to add up that this sweet, passionate boy was related to her. He saw the same enthusiasm in his eyes when he discussed his studies in the workshop, as he did in Astoria whenever she came home from another trip to France with her husband.

She had a knowing look in her eye as Albus ringed up the gardening gloves, the hanging plants, and the jars of honey. And, if Astoria saw him slip the succulent and a hastily written phone number into the box with the rest of her purchases, she pretended not to notice.

Albus spent the rest of the week texting back and forth with Scorpius. It wasn’t long before his uncle had to ask that he put his phone away while he was working the floor, because he kept finding him beaming at it in the middle of the herb section.

He was standing in the workshop, looking at one of the most recent photos Scorpius had sent him - a selfie of him, smiling happily with the succulent on his windowsill - when he heard a knock at the door.

It was Scorpius, holding a light blue pot with a small devil’s ivy inside. “Hi, Albus.”

“Oh, hey,” he said, hastily locking his phone and putting it away, before pointing at the plant. “Who’s this?”

Scorpius carefully put the pot on the workbench and shrugged. They’d started naming plants in their texts, after Scorpius accidentally let slip the name he’d given the succulent. Albus would send photos of plants in the store and Scorpius would respond with increasingly random names, like ‘Hector’ or ‘Nausicaa’. He prodded the soil and brushed the leaves with his thumb, satisfied with the work Astoria had done. “Mum said you wanted a cutting,” Scorpius explained, touching one of the leaves and almost brushing Albus’ hand with his.

Albus frowned and drew his hand back. “I didn’t ask for a cutting? I thought she was going to give them all to her neighbour.”

“Well - that’s what she told me.” Scorpius replied. “I can take her back, if you don’t want her. I’m sure she’ll do nicely in my dorm room back at uni.”

“No - no, I’ll take her,” he interjected, grabbing the plant and looking around for somewhere to put it, before giving up and putting it back down on the bench. Scorpius was smiling at him and he smiled back. “How’s Hector?”

He stared at him for a moment, before his eyes went wide with recognition at the name of the succulent. “Oh! I actually renamed him. He’s Albus Potter Junior now.”

“Hmm,” he murmured. “That might get a little confusing.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to ask a plant out on a date...”

Scorpius trailed off, tracing the rim of the pot with his fingertips and avoiding eye contact with Albus, who looked at him with confusion. “Wait, what?”

“I wasn’t going to ask you like that,” he blurted out, nearly toppling the plant and smashing another pot. “I had a speech prepared, and everything, but I forgot it as soon as I walked in.”

“You want to go out on a date?”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Scorpius replied, urgently, as he took a small step towards him. Albus could see the light brown freckles dotted across his face and feel the warmth of him in the small, enclosed space of the workshop. He wanted to reach out and touch, but he stopped himself.

“...Are you sure?” He asked, after what felt like an eternity.

Scorpius’ shoulders dropped and he stepped back. “Albus, if this is your way of saying no, I’d much prefer it if you just spit it out and tell me right off that you don’t wa-”

Albus grabbed his wrist and pulled him in, kissing him. Scorpius let out a surprised breath, before leaning in, and kissing him right back. It was messy and Albus was certain that he’d knocked some brushes to the floor in his eagerness to hold this ridiculous, passionate, lovely boy - but he didn’t care.

Scorpius was laughing against his lips and Albus felt the warmth of it right down in the depths of his belly, and the tips of his fingers. It was like the first harvest of Autumn, or the slow but beautiful flood of colour in Spring after a long and cold Winter.

“Hmm,” Scorpius hummed, as they finally pulled apart. “I’m starting to think my mother sent me and that plant on purpose.”

Albus laughed, in that loud and honest way he only ever did when Astoria said something funny, or when he pulled carrots from the soil with his uncle, or when he read another stream of messages from Scorpius about a succulent named Hector. “Maybe I should call it Cupid.”

“That’s terrible,” Scorpius replied, but kissed him and smiled nonetheless. “I love it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I went to a plant nursery today, bought two (2) plants, and then wrote this fic in one sitting. I blame any plant related inaccuracies on my lack of sleep just sshhhh shhh enjoy the garden vibes and the artist albus vibes shhh don't forget to drink water and make sure your plants drink water as well but not too much because that's bad for them.
> 
> please let me know your thoughts in the comments! you can find me on tumblr, twitter, and instagram @lumoshyperion.


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